On a daily basis, life for the Chinese immigrants was a constant stuggle.
The food was practically unedible and the living conditions were deplorable.
Worst of all they were separated from their families. From the moment the
Chinese immigrants arrived, they were immediately led up to various offices
to fill out forms and then to the hospital where each immigrant would undergo
a complete physical. The immigrants were forced to strip off all of their
clothes and allow the doctors to examine them. For the women,
this procedure was extremely demeaning because as a very modest people,
they were embarrassed to expose themselves to complete strangers. If one
of them was found to have any kind of sickness or disease, he or she was
immediately deported. After the guards began a file on each immigrant, they
led them to the Immigration Station. Coming from a completely foreign culture,
the drastic change in lifestyle devastated the Chinese immigrants. They
were unsure how long they would remain imprisoned and they didn't know the
next time they would see their family members again. Depending on their
answers to the [interrogations], the time span of their imprisonment ranged
from two weeks to two years. Although the Americans made minor attempts
to ease the cultural change, their blatant discrimination allowed them to
treat the Chinese like animals.

Although the Americans hired Chinese cooks to ease the cultural change,
the food was still awful. Only small amounts of meat and vegetables were
served and rice was the immigrant's primary sustenance. Though even the
rice, which was left out all day, was soggy. The food was so bad that in
the early 1920's the Chinese inmates rioted. (Angel Island, Jewel of SF
Bay) In fact, family members smuggled food in from the mainland through
the cooks. The immigrants would reheat the food by placing it on the steam
pipes that lined all of the barracks. This only proves further that the
food was less than adequate.

Despite the efforts of the Americans, Angel Island still felt like a
prison to the Chinese. Like the meals, the living quarters at Angel Island
also proved unbearable. Fencing and barbwire surrounded the station, and
frosted windows subdued the only sunlight that reached the barracks. When
they first arrived, as the Chinese families approached the foreboding building,
they were confronted with two doors at the top of the steps: one for women,
and one for men. No matter how old the child or parent, all men were separated
from all women: husbands from wives, fathers from daughters, and brothers
from sisters. One of the first changes that the Chinese recognized was the
wooden building of the station. In China their houses were traditionally
made of brick and their barns built out of wood. Being stuffed into confined
wooden building was not only unfamiliar, but also an insult. The women'sbedswere arranged in three
layers, close together, and narrow. The damp and musty barracks reeked of
body odor and tobacco spit. Also, the Americans allowed the men to wander
outside their barracks in an enclosed
area "at their leisure" and provided a "recreation center"
to prevent riots. Some other more insignificant features that the Americans
provided for the Chinese included steam pipes for heat, a blanket, and a
pillow for each bed.

Although the Americans provided some comforts such as running water,
the facilities were still abhorrent. The intolerable smelling bathrooms were rusty, dirty, and had no dividers
between the toilets or showers. The modest immigrants, to escape the humiliation,
would place paper bags over their heads to hide their identity when they
went to the bathroom. "The worst part was the toilet. It was a ditch
congested with filth. It stank up the whole barracks. We slept on three
tiers of canvas bunks. The blankets were so coarse that it might have been
woven of wolf's hair. It was indeed a most humiliating imprisonment."
(Mr. Lowe, age 16 in 1939) The women would avoid using the bathrooms at
all costs because men sent to Angel Island from Alcatraz were housed directly
above them, and believed the showers were haunted by the small number of
women who killed themselves there. The women were reluctant to share showers
and would fill basins with water and take sponge baths in their clothes.
They would then hang their wet clothes on a string hanging above their bunks.

The desperation of the Chinese was revealed by the pleading letters to
family members in San Francisco:

Father,

I kneel down to talk to you. I'm wishing you a very healthy life and
hope you are making money in your business. Your son is waiting on Angel
Island for three months. The hardship is indescribable. I hope that you
could get a lawyer as soon as possible to get me out of here. (Anonymous)

Although most of the immigrants were eventually permitted to enter San
Francisco, they still had to cope with the painful memories that lingered
even after Angel Island was closed in 1940. Even today when former immigrants
return to the island, they are overcome by a rush of emotion, sadness, and
heart-wrenching memories.